New to Gluten-Free Cooking? Try These Substitutions

If you’ve recently gone gluten-free for health, weight loss, or gluten intolerance—you’ll need to remove the gluten from your pantry. Donate what you can no longer eat or give it to a friend or family member. Then restock your pantry with these gluten substitutes. Don’t worry, it’s easier than you think to find delicious alternatives to some of your favorite pantry staples!

#1 Gluten-Free Bread and Cracker Substitutions

Head to your local health food store for the largest selection of gluten-free bread and crackers. However, almost every big-box grocer has at least a few options in their health food (and standard) aisles. Just be mindful, that shelf-stable breads are likely to go stale or crumble faster than breads with gluten. This is why many gluten-free breads are found in the freezer section. Don’t forget your local farmer’s market, as there’s sure to a be a celiac-friendly artisan or two.

#2 Pasta and Noodle Gluten Substitutes

Love pasta? Don’t worry, you won’t have to give it up! What you will need to do is determine which type is right to choose to achieve the same texture and taste you crave. You’ll likely need to purchase a mix of celiac-friendly pastas to use for different recipes.

Traditional Asian noodles

Glass noodles and other Asia rice noodles have always been gluten-free! You can even find Japanese soba noodles made with 100% buckwheat. However, you may not want to use them for Italian recipes as the flavor and texture are quite different. That said, rice noodles present an excellent opportunity to try new GF recipes.

Traditional Italian noodles

Noodles made from corn, rice, and quinoa can be found in gluten substitutes that you can use to make your favorite Italian dishes. This includes spaghetti, penne, rotini, fettuccine, lasagna, elbow, and more. Even brands like Barilla have GF options. Cooking time is slightly longer, and you must stir them while they boil to ensure they don’t stick together. The flavor profile and texture are different, but close.

Soup and casserole noodles

In soups and casseroles, you may prefer chickpea, lentil, or millet noodles. You can also use lentil and chickpea pasta for Italian dishes, but their nutty flavor is more distinct. Millet’s flavor is slightly sweet. These noodles cook faster than corn, rice, and quinoa noodles. They fall apart if overcooked so be mindful of the cooking time. In soups and casseroles, you may not mind if your noodles fall apart a bit.

Veggie noodles

You can shred or spiral zucchini, sweet potatoes, and carrots to make veggie noodles. Or you can use spaghetti squash.

#3 Gluten-Free Flour

Gluten-free flour is a little bit trickier to substitute than bread, crackers, and noodles. This is because the flavor, texture, and liquid absorption rate vary greatly from one GF flour to the next. The top GF flours to choose from include:

• Almond
• Amaranth
• Arrowroot
• Brown rice
• buckwheat
• Cassava
• Chickpea
• Coconut
• Corn
• Oat
• sorghum
• Tapioca
• Teff
• Tigernut

Instead of stocking up on all of the flours above, use dedicated GF recipes. This eliminates the trial and error of determining which gluten substitutes to use. This is particularly important when baking. If you bake with a GF flour that has a high absorption rate, your baked goods won’t rise. Or use a one-to-one GF flour. This means that if a recipe that calls for 1 cup of standard white flour, you use 1 cup of the one-to-one GF flour.

Looking For Some Delicious GF Recipes?

If it’s easier to determine what you want to cook before you restock your pantry, explore Oh No Gluten’s recipe index. With the right recipes and ingredients, eliminating gluten in your diet is easy!